Paul Doherty: Satan in St Mary

"No, " Alice replied. "But he was always a timid man. Fearful of his own shadow!"

"What was Crepyn involved in?"

Alice sat and thought, the doubt and perplexity visible in her beautiful eyes and face. "He was a money-lender, " she replied slowly. "A man who rose high in city politics. A man of the Populares who was loyal enough to the Crown but still supported the radical politics of the great… " she stammered, "of de Montfort. "

"And Duket? Why did he quarrel with Crepyn?"

"Crepyn was a money-lender disliked by many people. The Dukets were not the only ones caught in his net. "

She lowered her eyes. "Perhaps Crepyn deserved what he got, " she continued softly. "Sometimes I used to warn him but he only laughed. " There was a silence as she played with the hem of one of her silk gloves.

"Is that all?" Corbett asked.

She nodded. "For a while, " she added, then rose and walked to a large chest in the far corner of the kitchen. She took out a flute and brought it back to Corbett. "Your visit has saddened me, Master Clerk. I feel unhappy and angry at the stupid deaths of two men I knew. I always find the flute soothes the roused humours of both mind and body. "

Corbett sat as if in a trance. The flute was almost the replica of one he had owned in the golden time so long ago. Before it disappeared in a funeral pyre on which he had thrown the shattered flute. He stretched out his hand like a dreamer and took the flute, stroking its polished wood as if it was the face of a long-lost child who had suddenly returned. He put it to his lips and played, the spine-tingling, haunting tune, bitter-sweet, filled the room with its sound. Hugh played and could almost feel the Sussex sun on his face, almost see the small child dance and laugh, while his wife leaned against a wall, arms folded smiling at both player and dancer. He played on, ignoring the hot tears which scalded his eyes and rolled down his face. Then it was gone, both the music and the vision and he was alone in a room with a beautiful woman staring fixedly at him.

Corbett laid the flute down gently on the table, bowed and walked quietly out of the kitchen, through the tavern into the cold darkness of the street. He had forgotten about his mission, for old wounds had been opened and the pus poured out. He saw the dirt and filth of the street and the rubbish-filled gutter. The wine stains along the wall, the mongrel dog sniffing at the bloated body of a dead rat, the beggar in rags, covered with sores, cowering in the corner from the cold and the world. He knew he should not have played the flute; the world had been ordered then, closed and neatly filed like the scrolls in Couville's record office. In such a world he saw nothing good but, there again, nothing ugly. He felt the nightmares returning and remembered the disordered life he had led after his wife had died and the months he had spent in the cool darkness of that Sussex monastery. Then, just as he was about to leave Paternoster Row, he felt a hand on his elbow. He turned, and recognized one of the tapsters from The Mitre. The lad thrust the flute into Corbett's hands.

"My mistress, " he said, "says you should keep it and come again and play for her. " Corbett nodded and, gripping the flute, disappeared into the darkness.

Six

Corbett had taken from the coroner the names of the three wardsmen who had mounted guard on Saint Mary Le Bow and, the day after he had met Alice, he decided to interrogate them. All three were tradesmen plying their individual craft in the alleyways and lanes of Cheapside. All three swore to the same story and Corbett felt sure that they were speaking the truth as they saw it; they had been summoned by a messenger from one of the under-sheriffs of the city to guard the entrance of the church late in the afternoon on the same day that Lawrence Duket had fled there for sanctuary. They had assembled just before Vespers, had gone into the entrance of the church and seen Duket sitting in the Blessed Chair fast asleep. They had watched him stir, awake and so they left to stand guard outside.

After the bells of the nearby churches had rung for Vespers, (those of Saint Mary Le Bow did not because of Duket's presence), the rector had come and locked the church. They ensured it was secure and heard Duket push home the inside bolts. The door being safely fastened, they planned their watch according to a rota, one would sleep while two mounted guard. A brazier was lit for warmth in the shelter of some trees and, though all three confessed it was freezing cold and sinister to be in a graveyard on such a wild night, nothing untoward happened. They patrolled the church perimeter, they saw no one approach and found it impossible to conceive of how anyone could, even if he slipped by their guard, enter the church for all entrances a man could use were locked and secure. Thus it remained until dawn when the rector returned. He unlocked the door but could not open it, so he asked the watch to help him force it. They beat upon the door to waken Duket, thinking he was asleep and, when this proved fruitless, forced the door with a log until it bent in and the inside bolts snapped.

They found the church as it had been the previous evening. No marks on the floor or any sign of disturbance except in the sanctuary where the chair had been pushed over to the right-hand corner of the sanctuary near the wall. Above this, swinging from an iron bar fixed near the window, was the black-faced, lifeless body of Lawrence Duket. The rector and the wardsmen immediately ran down the church but one look at the dead man's face made them realize that it was too late. They looked around for any sign of disturbance or forced entry but found none. Bellet told them to stand near the body and guard it while he left to send for the coroner. Corbett knew what happened next and made each of the three men repeat their statements, especially the details about their forced entry through the main door. Corbett knew instinctively that the men were not liars, they had no ties with either Duket or Crepyn though they knew of them. They were three rather baffled tradesmen, who had tried to do their duty only to fail in the most mysterious circumstances, for all three swore that no one got into the church, nor did they hear any sound from it during their entire watch.

Satisfied, Corbett returned to the house of the coroner, where he made his request of a rather surprised and now petulant official. Of course, the coroner was shocked at his request, but when Corbett argued his case and flourished

Burnell's writ, he reluctantly agreed and sent a servant to the Guildhall with a message. He told Corbett that it would take some time so Corbett decided to visit the stalls and booths along Cheapside.

It was late in the afternoon when he returned to the coroner's house to find two burly individuals carrying spades and a hoe lounging dejectedly outside the door. Inside the coroner was mixing some evil-smelling paste and beside him, looking almost ill with the smell, was a tall, young man with shoulder-length greasy hair, poxed face and sallow features. The coroner introduced him as Stephen Novile, bailiff of the city and, with little ceremony, ushered both of them to the door. The bailiff seemed relieved to be going, though wary of Corbett.

"You know what you are doing, Master Clerk?" The voice was a high treble, almost squeaky.

"Yes, " Corbett replied. "I want you and your assistants, " he turned to nod at the wooden-looking labourers, "to take me where Duket's body is buried in the city ditch. I am on the King's business, " he continued crisply. "The body belongs to a suicide and so we are not disturbing hallowed ground. The coroner sent for all three of you as I understand that you were responsible for the burial. Yes?"

The bailiff nodded, his thin lips pursed, his shifty watery eyes unable to hold Corbett's gaze. He snapped his fingers at the two labourers and all four set off silently up Cheapside, through the shambles, past Newgate and across the old city walls.